Description

NEW YORK: introduction

From various sources, 11 Columbus memorials were located:

Statues
1. 1867 by Emma Stebbins in Brooklyn
2. 1892 by Gaetano Russo on Columbus Circle (together with the Barcelona monument the most famous of all Columbus monuments).
3. 1894 by Jeronimo Suñol in Central Park
4. 1907 by Augustus Lukeman at Customs House
5. 1936 by Angelo Racioppi in Queens
6. Statue in the cathedral church of St. John the Divine
7. Statue of the boy Columbus in the Christopher Columbus High School

   Busts

8. 1925 by Attilio Piccirilli in Bronx
9. Columbus Citizens Foundation
10. Hist. Society

    Other memorial

11. IRT West Side: 59th Street-Columbus Circle

Columbus Circle Monument

On the base, facing south (primary facade): 1.8m-tall winged boy of Carrera marble, variously called "Genius of Geography", "Genius of Columbus," or "Genius of Discovery."

Below the Genius: 1.2m-wide bronze relief of Columbus making his first landfall:

On the column: ships prows and anchors, in bronze

Columbus at the top: Carrera marble. He holds the tiller with his right hand (behind him), and looks slightly toward the left.

The fountains around the base were designed by Douglas Leigh. The decorative fence that surrounds the island on which the Monument sits was donated by the Delacorte Foundation in 1960.

Inscription(s)

TO
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
THE ITALIANS RESIDENT IN AMERICA,
SCOFFED AT BEFORE,
DURING THE VOYAGE, MENACED,
AFTER IT, CHAINED,
AS GENEROUS AS OPPRESSED,
TO THE WORLD, HE GAVE A WORLD.

JOY AND GLORY
NEVER UTTERED A MORE THRILLING CALL
THAN THAT WHICH RESOUNDED
FROM THE CONQUERED OCEAN
IN SIGHT OF THE FIRST AMERICAN ISLAND
LAND! LAND!

ON THE XII OF OCTOBER MDCCCXCII
THE FOURTH CENTENARY
OF THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA
IN IMPERISHABLE REMEMBRANCE

A
CRISTOFORO COLOMBO
GLI ITALIANI RESIDENTI IN AMERICA
IRRISO PRIMA
MINACCIATO DURANTE IL VIAGGIO
INCATENATO DOPO
SAPENDO ESSER GENEROSO QUANTO OPPRESSO
DONAVA UN MONDO AL MONDO.

LA GIOIA E LA GLORIA
NON EBBERO MAI PIU SOLENNE GUIDO
DI QUELLO CHE RISUONO IN VISTA
DELLA PRIMA ISOLA AMERICANA
TERRA! TERRA!

NEL 12 OTTOBRE 1892
QUARTO CENTENARIO
DELLA SCOPERTA D'AMERICA
A IMPERITURA MEMORIA

Annotation

From Francis Morrone writes: "...Barsotti [= Carlo Barsotti (1850-1927), an immigrant who in 1880 founded Il Progresso, in time the city's largest-circulation foreign-language daily newspaper] sponsored the most spectacular of New York's monuments that celebrate the specialness of the New World. Gaetano Russo's Christopher Columbus monument in Columbus Circle, unveiled in 1892 on the 400th anniversary of the Italian explorer's discovery of America. A marble Columbus surmounts a granite column, embellished with ship's prows and anchors like a famous lost column of Augustus, on which the Roman emperor had hung the prows of the ships he defeated in the Battle of Actium in 31 b.c. ..."

See also the description by Ponce de Leon.

The monument was restored in 1992.

This monument on postcards

Click here for all 31 postcards and enlargements

Sources & Information

• Photos: (overview) Rene´ van der Krogt, 25 October 2000;
  (details of foot): Peter van der Krogt, 25 October 25, 2000;
  (statue): fld1970, 13 July 2006. See fld1970's photostream on Flickr.
• Postcard in author's collection.
• Dianne Durante, author of Forgotten Delights (first in a series of guidebooks to New York's outdoor representational sculpture), sent me valuable extra information and corrections.
• Francis Morrone, Statues and Civic Memory.
• Néstor Ponce de León, The Columbus Gallery (New York, 1893), p. 116-119.
• J.M. Dickey, Christopher Columbus and his Monument Columbia (1892), pp. 243-247.

Index of:

• Statue

Location (N 40°46'5" - W 73°58'54")

Item Code: usny28
Added: 1 January 2000  / Updated: 25 October 2000

© Website: René & Peter van der Krogt